1. Field of the Disclosure
This disclosure relates generally to the delivery of electronic mail. In particular, the present disclosure relates to a method of managing a sender's email recipient fields by creating a predefined association between selected individuals and specified recipient fields.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the rapid development of the Information Age, electronic mail (email) has become a convenient and reliable means of communication. Email messages have adopted a format similar to that employed by standard written mail, being comprised of a header followed by the body of the message itself. The header typically contains a series of recipient fields which include a Primary or To field, a CC or carbon copy field, and a BCC or blind carbon copy field.
When an email is composed and sent, each recipient receives an exact duplicate of the message. However, the action or response expected from each recipient is dependent largely upon which recipient field he/she is placed. Individuals in the To field are typically expected to provide a direct response or perform a specified action whereas individuals in the CC field are persons who have an interest in, but don't need to act upon the subject matter and whose identity does not need to be concealed. The BCC field is usually intended for recipients who have an interest in the message, but whose identity and/or incorporation on the recipient list is to be concealed.
In certain instances there may arise a need to repetitively send a large number of emails to the same recipients or to send messages of a sensitive nature. In this case it is necessary to manually enter each intended recipient in their designated recipient field. This does, however, make the process error-prone. Thus, sensitive information may be sent to the wrong recipient and/or a recipient's identity may be inadvertently disclosed to the wrong persons. Problems may also arise when a response is expected, but a person is sent an email message as a CC instead of as a To recipient resulting in the mistaken impression that the email message was provided for informational purposes only.